Hello, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58085316 is an article about the £2.3bn government spend on patching old computers and systems compared with the £4.7bn total government IT spend. There are also several comments below. I do not know how much is spent on desktop system replacement, but there is an argument raging about the security aspects and costs of writing replacement or upgraded software systems. There is one comment about existing specialised hardware such as an MRI scanner built by a company that no longer exists but would be extremely expensive to replaced, (although replacement FOSS may already exist). I am not a developer, but would be interested in the implications and costs of writing and maintaining government software systems using Free Open Source Software compared with Microsoft. I assume that high level languages could be used, and I know what I would prefer, but that does not always convince the decision makers who are probably not IT experts.
-- Chris Bell Website chrisbell.org.uk -- GLLUG mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug
